driving the mini cooper

I got to drive a mini cooper (new style) this weekend. I rented one for the day from zipcar to take Rakka on her birthday twin peaks odyssey. It's so cute, but it's actually kind of painful to work with.

The biggest problem is me. I'm too tall for it. At 5 foot ten, my head is up in the rafters, so to speak. I had to sort of duck down to see traffic lights. I think what happens is there's not enough room to stretch out the foot well, so the seats have to be high.

My other major complaint is that the dash controls were designed for form exclusively. The engineers came in later and figured out which switches to hook up to which functions. We had to pull over to find the window switches (yes, I said switches). The stereo controls are in the speedometer, except for the volume/power which is the second thing below.

I like retro styling as much as the next guy. But I also like things to make some sort of sense. I had hoped that they would have found a better balance.

Complaints aside, it was really fun to drive on the curvy roads around snoqualmie falls. It's sticks to the road. It's responsive. When there's no traffic lights, and therefore no hunching over, it's a joy to drive.